Paint by Numbers
by MegaBadBunny
Summary: "Wait, so you're telling me the love of your life is in there—right there, right now—and instead of marching in there and taking care of her, you're sitting out here, bloody brooding?"


For a few blinding moments, all she feels is the sheer white _cold._

"…you not to, I _told_ you," bleeds into her hearing, faint and dim like a background hum, like a dream. The voice is cottony through the ice-cold of her skin, the pain screaming in her veins, the penny-copper smell in her nose, but if she didn't know any better, she'd almost think it was _him_ —

"No, no no no no," says the voice frantically, from somewhere far away, and she wonders what's wrong. "Stay awake, stay with me, don't—"

The darkness is quiet and warm.

* * *

She dreams; she dreams about stormy grey beaches and solid white walls.

* * *

White floods her vision the moment she wakes.

"Rose? Are you conscious? Are you all right?"

She blinks, sorting through the words in her head, parsing the meaning of them. It's a little difficult to separate them from the faint beeping surrounding her, an uneven _beep-beep-beep_ , _beep-beep_ bleating in time with her heart. Her skull feels stuffed with cobwebs and it's taking a little while for things to make their way through.

Eventually, the Doctor's face swims into view, sharply contrasted with the stark, antiseptic walls around him. He looks worried.

God, he's lovely.

"Rose?"

"'M fine," she says automatically. And really, she is, if you ignore things like her cloud-filled head and aching temples and how she can't seem to stop shivering and it would be nice if the room stopped moving, please.

Grimacing, the Doctor drags a hand over his face; even through the fog in her head, Rose can see that he's trembling. "I told you not to do it," he breathes. "I don't know what you were thinking."

His gaze turns hard. "I should have stopped you."

Feebly, Rose tries to protest, to reach for him, but he jerks back faster than her brain can process right now, as if he needs time before he can touch her again, _as if four years wasn't enough somehow._ He stalks away before Rose can open her mouth, to plead with him to stay.

It's just as well. He won't miss much while she slips back into unconsciousness.

* * *

She closes her eyes and her brain plays back memories like film on a rickety projector.

* * *

There's another voice out in the corridor, now; Rose can just make it out over the beeping of the monitors in the medbay. _Beep-beep_ , _beep-beep_ , they chirp, cheerful, slow, steady.

"Wait, so you're telling me the love of your life is in there—right _there_ , right _now_ —and instead of marching in there and taking care of her, you're sitting out here, bloody _brooding_?"

"She's well-cared-for, Donna," is the curt reply. "She's not lacking for any amenities or medical attention."

"That's not what I mean and you know it."

Silence. Rose imagines the Doctor is glaring at the floor right about now, brow furrowed and arms crossed over his abdomen. _Petulant_ , she thinks hazily, though she can't quite remember what the word means.

 _Beep-beep, beep-beep_ , chimes the medical monitors. A cold sound in a cold room. Rose is piled with blankets but she can't stop shivering.

She wishes she could see him.

"So how long are you gonna pout out here, anyway?" the other voice—Donna—asks impatiently.

Again, the Doctor doesn't reply. Several moments pass in agonizing quiet before Donna huffs in irritation. Rose can practically _hear_ her rolling her eyes, even through the walls of the medbay.

"Fine, have fun being a giant prat," says Donna, and the squeak of trainers on the floor lets Rose know she's walking away. "I'm sure Rose came back just for that!"

 _It's about what I expected, actually_ , Rose thinks, or maybe says, she can't be sure. The bright-white hurts her eyes so she closes them and slips quickly back into slumber.

 _Beep-beep, beep-beep_.

* * *

Ring-ring, ring-ring _._

 _The line chimed for ages; generations and eons and entire geologic periods passed in the time between knells. Rose worried her lip between her teeth, fingers tapping an idle taboo against the side of her headset. Glancing down at the equipment desk, she watched her old mobile as it flashed numbers and a tiny blue icon across its cracked little screen, happily announcing that, yep, it was still calling, and nope, no one had picked up yet. Chin in hand, Rose tapped the dials in front of her, double-checked the diagnostics screens, triple-checked the many cables connecting her old mobile to the Projector device in a tangle of dully black and grey._

 _Fifty-two calls, now; that meant fifty-two other universes detected, not one of them right. Mickey's half-lidded, sleepy eyes and the lab tech's fingers lazily spinning a pencil back and forth let Rose know they'd already given up on this call, and she could only half-blame them. Call fifty-three certainly didn't look promising._

" _That's forty-five seconds gone," Mickey rattled off, watching dispassionately as the stopwatch in his hand counted down. He stifled a yawn. "Just over a minute left. You wanna go ahead and cut out?"_

" _No, might as well go the full 113. We've got the budget for it."_

" _Yeah, but then it's two days before we can make another call. If they even let us make another call."_

 _Ring-ring, ring-ring chimed the other end of the line._

 _With a dry chuckle, Rose adjusted a knob on the Projector, wincing at the feedback that flared in her ear. "Of course. What's the fate of the universe when you've got that pesky bottom line to maintain?"_

" _On the plus side, when we do blink out of existence, at least we won't hear any whinging from Accounting anymore."_

Ring-ring, ring-ring _._

" _Or maybe that's all we'll hear," joked the lab tech—technically the lead lab tech, a friendly and pleasantly plump middle-aged woman named Julie, and coincidentally, one of perhaps four people besides Rose and Mickey who hadn't completely given up on this project. She swiveled round in her chair, her pencil still dancing between her fingers. "You know," she continued, "if those cult leaders are right and we're going to hell, and all."_

" _God," Rose and Mickey groaned in unison, and Rose laughed. "They're not still picketing outside the lobby, are they?" she asked._

" _Oh, yeah. Now they've been joined by that other cult, the what-d'you-call-'em's, the Children of Night or whatever."_

" _Those the blokes with the dark hoods and those blinking star-staff-things?"_

" _No, you're thinking of the_ Brotherhood _of the Night."_

Ring-ring, ring-ring _._

" _Blimey," sighed Mickey, scrubbing a hand over his face; it made a not-unpleasant_ scritch-scratch _sound against the four-day-old stubble that sat dark on his chin. It was a good look for him, Rose thought, or at least it would be if it wasn't a byproduct of trying to outrun the end of the world. "Things are bad enough without all these nutcases making them worse," he groused._

" _At least the Evangelicals never gained any traction," said Rose. "Can you imagine what it's like in America right now?"_

" _I'm trying not to. Seems like every time we come in to work, there's another report of another zealot interfering with NASA business."_

" _Speaking of, have you heard anything back from their people yet? We were supposed to get those suits ages ago."_

" _No, shipment's delayed while they sort out litigation issues." Mickey grimaced. "Apparently some radicalist right-wing group is suing NASA on the grounds that their 'attempts to halt the Apocalypse interfere with sincerely-held religious beliefs' or whatever."_

Ring-ring, ring

" _Why d'you suppose so many folks are hopping on this pro-Apocalypse bandwagon, anyway?" asked Julie. "You'd think people would want to believe in a just and merciful god, not one that punishes without warning or reason."_

 _Thinking for a moment, Mickey shrugged. "Maybe it's a control thing. Like, 'Welp, this wouldn't have happened if we'd been better. We could have prevented this, we just didn't.' Because, y'know, then it's like the stars aren't going out because of some random thing we can't understand or control, they're going out because we're bad, because of things we did."_

 _Julie snorted. "Smells an awful lot like narcissism to me."_

" _I dunno. Maybe it's just less scary for people to think we earned this somehow. Like we've actually got any say in how the universe operates."_

" _Yeah," said Julie thoughtfully. Then, with a grin, "How much you want to bet those Brotherhood tossers aren't wearing anything under those robes?"_

" _Five quid," Mickey laughs._

" _C'mon, mate. At least make it ten!"_

" _Make it twenty and you've got a deal," piped up a voice on the other end of the line, and all three of them jumped._

 _Rose and Mickey exchanged shocked glances, Mickey's eyes as wide as Rose had ever seen them. That voice—Rose knew that voice—_

 _Was there any way it could actually be—?_

 _"Hullo!" said the voice, amused. "Person-you-called here. I presume you did it for a reason? I'd love to know what it is."_

 _Time was moving too slow and too fast all at once._

 _Julie snapped to, tossing her pencil over her shoulder as she darted to her control board and gestured frantically for Rose to start talking. Heart hammering painfully in her throat, Rose yanked down her mic._

" _Doctor?" she asked, breathless._

 _A pause. Dimly, Rose registered the noise of chirping, quiet and echoing somewhere in her periphery, but it faded to the background in favor of the sound on the other end of the line, soft amidst the crackle of static and white noise. It was a quiet, gentle sound, like someone's mouth falling open in surprise._

 _Rose held her breath. She swore she could feel the earth moving beneath her._

"… _Rose?" asked the voice on the other end._

 _With a shuddering gasp and a groan, the lights around them blinked out, plunging the room into total pitch-blackness. Mickey swore and dropped the still-chirping stopwatch in his haste to help Julie restore the connection or at least mitigate the damage, flipping switches and banging the side of the blasted Projector, like maybe that would turn the damn thing back on, like their illicit extra few seconds didn't just drain the entire city of power. At least UNIT's generous donations to the hospital and police station had them taken care of, with their top-of-the-line generators smoothly picking up the slack, but the rest of the city wouldn't be so lucky. Julie was already muttering angrily under her breath about all the nasty calls she'd be getting from their bosses and the local councils the next day, and Mickey smacked the top of the Projector in frustration._

 _Rose did none of these things. Rose smiled._

 _She'd found him. She'd found the Doctor._

 _Everything was going to be all right._

* * *

Rose gasps awake to a dark room and a hand pushing her down gently by the shoulder.

"Easy, easy, everything's okay, you're okay," says someone—it's the voice from before, a woman's voice. Donna's voice.

Rose blinks sleep and disorientation out of her eyes to see a woman peering down at her, her face only just visible in the soft dark. Fire-red hair peeks out beneath a thick woolen hat, and Donna pulls her jumper close, shivering. "Been sleeping like the dead, but you're okay," she continues with a reassuring pat.

"Wha' happen?" Rose murmurs blearily.

"Well, as the Doctor put it, your takeoff was perfect, but no one lands well with their wings clipped."

She can't be sure she's doing it properly, but Rose does her best to raise an eyebrow in confusion. "Huh?"

"Ah, sorry," Donna says, shaking her head. "Long story short, your machine did the job, got you across the Void and all, but you'd, well."

She frowns. "You'd gone into shock by the time you arrived. Looks like sabotage, far as the Doctor can tell."

Nodding, Rose presses the heels of her palms into her eyes until she sees stars. _Bloody cultists_. She should have seen that coming. She'll have to warn Mickey and the others before anyone else tries to—

 _Oh, god_.

"Mickey!" she starts to say, shooting up in bed, but Donna just places a hand on her shoulder again.

"Don't worry, sweetheart, we've talked to him," Donna says, in a soothing tone of voice that would drive Rose batty were she more awake. "He knows all about the sabotage, and that you're here, and that you're safe. Okay?"

"'Kay," Rose mutters, willing her heart to stop racing and lungs to stop seizing up in her chest. Slowly, she relaxes back against her pillows, drawing her duvet up close.

(Why can't she stop _shivering_? Maybe it's a side effect of the shock. She doesn't care for it.)

"Thanks," she adds, as an afterthought.

"Don't mention it. Anything else I can do for you?"

Rose tries to think, and slowly, the clouds begin to clear, like taking a broom to spiderwebs in the cupboards. She's on the TARDIS. In bed. In the medbay. With Donna.

Who's Donna, again?

"Are you the new me?" she asks, fuzzily, because words are hard right now.

Donna's lips twitch. "Wanna try that again, blondie?"

"Sorry," Rose chuckles, and she offers a grateful smile when Donna hands her a cupful of water in response. Rose slowly drains the cup, shivering back down into her blankets afterward. "Thank you," she says. "And sorry again. I meant to say, are you the one traveling with the Doctor, now?"

"I am. Have been for a little over a year, by my reckoning."

"Good," says Rose softly. "I'm glad he hasn't been alone."

Donna takes the cup back with a smile. "He really shouldn't be, should he?"

"No, he shouldn't."

With a sage nod, Donna extends a hand for Rose to shake, and Rose accepts. "I'm Donna, by the way," she says. "And you, of course, would be the infamous Rose."

"Yeah. Very nice to meet you, Donna."

"Very nice to meet you, Rose. Good to finally be able to put a face to the name—god knows you hear it often enough around here."

Rose blinks in surprise. "Really?"

"Yes," Donna says emphatically. "I'm sure Martha took the brunt of it, but I still got more than my fair share of _Oh, Rose would do this_ and _Rose would say that_ and _Blah-blah-blah, Rose was the bestest-bestest-ever and maybe I should've said that her face but now she's gone and I'll never get the chance so I guess I'll be a hopeless lovesick sap instead and besides I never would have said anything anyway because I've got the emotional development of a pinecone, blah-blah-blah_."

Bewildered, Rose stares at the opposite wall, unsure of how to process this information, trying to ignore the blush that threatens to creep into her cheeks.

"Anyway, glad to see you made it back all in one piece," Donna breezes on. "The Doctor made it sound like there was a chance you wouldn't have, what with the sabotage and all. Though honestly, I'm not sure if he was being literal or like, if he meant actual little pieces, like little tiny microscopic pieces or big wet chunky bits—bleh, that'd be a nasty mess, he'd be on his own, cleaning that one up."

"Do you, erm," Rose starts to ask, suddenly shy. "Do you happen to know where he is, right now?"

"Yep." Donna's mouth purses into a thin line. "He's avoiding you."

Rose's shoulders droop in disappointment. "Oh."

Maybe it's silly, but she'd hoped for a warmer reunion, both literally and figuratively—nothing too extravagant, of course, just his infectious smile and a tight hug and maybe a hug again, maybe a few fond words, and she wouldn't say no to a kiss, though that might be reaching—but perhaps that was all too much to hope for, from him. He's not like her, after all; he doesn't crave that connection like she does.

She just hopes he gets over this sooner rather than later. She still misses him so much she wants to scream.

With a little shake, Rose slaps on a smile she doesn't feel, something she's got quite good at over the last few years. "So what about you, Donna? Where are you from, what did you do before, how'd you start traveling with the Doctor?"

"No," Donna replies, her voice kind, but firm.

Rose's brow wrinkles in confusion. "Sorry?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd love a chat later," Donna explains, pushing up from her bedside chair. "I'd abso-bloody-lutely _adore_ a chat later, haven't had a proper conversation with a woman in ages—the TARDIS is lovely and all, but she's not much of a talker, and the Doctor's no substitute, man's worthless for anything that's not alien electronics or whatever bits of history he pulls out of his arse—but if I do that right now, I'll be playing right into his hand, and that's just not gonna happen."

"What do you mean?"

Donna sighs. "You're still just a little bit addled, aren't you? Go find him, dumbo. Track him to his hidey-hole, pin him down, and make him talk to you. And don't let him hide behind me or anything else. Okay?"

With a slow nod of understanding, Rose releases a shaky breath. "Wow. Yeah. Okay."

"Good."

Donna claps her hands and the medbay lights spring on overhead, piercing Rose's eyes with their sharp-white glare. Ducking out of sight, Donna returns with a laundry-basket heaped with clothes, which she overturns on Rose's bed. Jumpers and mittens and thick woolen socks tumble out of the basket in an elegant landslide, covering Rose's legs and spilling over the edge of the bed onto the floor.

"Am I helping you with the laundry, first?" Rose asks with a smile.

"I'm sure you picked up on the fact that it's a little chilly in here," explains Donna as she fishes around the clothes-pile. "That's because whatever thingummy-whatsit the Doctor rigged up with the tractor-beam-doodad to help you do your jump-thing did a number on the power."

"Aww, so you raided the wardrobe room to bring me warm things." Rose beams. "Lovely, thank you!"

"You're very welcome. Might be wearing jumpers for a while, though—the TARDIS is in some sort of emergency powersave mode right now to conserve fuel. _Essential functions only_ , the Doctor said."

"Right, cos heat's not an essential function or anything," Rose laughs, plucking at a particularly vile rainbow jacket.

"God, yes," Donna groans. She tosses Rose a pair of mismatched but very nice plushy socks. " _Yes_ , see, that's what I mean! Another reasonable person onboard, another _woman_ onboard, that's exactly what I need!"

"Don't worry, darling, she means another _human_ woman," Rose coos to the TARDIS, lovingly stroking a nearby coral strut.

"Oi, don't you go rubbing bits of her, it's bad enough that he does it."

"Donna just doesn't understand, does she? It's all right, you're plenty woman for me."

Donna sticks out her tongue. "Ugh. You two really are made for each other. Gross."

"Do you hear that? _Made for each other._ Donna's blessed our union and everything!"

"Yep, that's exactly what I meant," Donna laughs, tossing a pair of thick-knit trousers Rose's way. They hit her in the face with a _whumph_. "Now layer up and get on out there!"

* * *

 _This time, the phone didn't even get a full ring in before the Doctor picked up._

" _Listen," he said, his voice taut, like a string pulled tight and about to snap. "I don't know how you got hold of this number, or how you got hold of that phone, but if this is some sort of prank or sick joke—"_

" _It's not a joke, Doctor, I swear—"_

"— _then I will do everything within my considerable power to personally ensure that you regret it—"_

"— _it's me, it's Rose, I'm calling from the other universe, but I haven't got much time—"_

"— _and please believe me when I say I don't make empty threats—"_

"— _please, Doctor, I need your help!"_

 _The silence that fell between them was thick with suspicion._

" _I mean, we need your help," Rose amended, her grip on her old mobile tightening until her knuckles glowed white._

 _Silence once again. Mickey flashed the stopwatch her way. Ninety-five seconds left._

" _Please, Doctor," said Rose. "Our universe is dying. Something's killing us, star by star."_

 _More quiet. Over Julie's shoulder, Rose glanced at the diagnostics screen, double-checking the connection to ensure nothing cut them off, but the signal was strong, according to the numbers—as strong as it could be, anyway, bouncing between universes. The Doctor just wasn't talking._

 _Of course, the one time she actually needed him to run his gob. Typical._

" _Look," Rose pleaded, turning away from Mickey and Julie, as if that would offer her any extra smidge of privacy, or maybe protection. "I can prove it's me, yeah? The first thing you ever said to me—this you, I mean, not the other you, the first one, my first one anyway, dunno how many of you there've been, cos—cos you haven't gone and changed again, have you? You sound mostly the same. You're still_ you _, right?"_

 _She couldn't blame him for not replying that time; that was a nice bit of word salad, that was. Rose cringed and pressed on._

" _You'd just regenerated, after the Games Station, and—and you were going on about your hair, and Barcelona," Rose continued, her voice low. "And then we crashed, and there was the bit with the fake Santas, and the Sycorax and Harriet Jones, and—and that was actually sort of awful what you did to her, by the way, I've had a good few years to think about it, doing the job I do, and that sort of thing gives you a bit of perspective and it just wasn't called-for, Doctor, I get why you were angry but her decision was actually really understandable even if you personally disagreed with it—"_

 _The sound of Mickey loudly clearing his throat interrupted her, and she glanced round to see him flashing the stopwatch again. Sixty-two seconds._

"… _but anyway," Rose said, a little sheepish now. "I know you said this sort of thing was impossible, contact between different worlds, but it's not. Not anymore. Whatever's killing our universe is tearing holes in all of reality, and we've got a machine that can send signals through those holes, across the Void. That's how I'm talking to you right now, Doctor. That's how I'm able to ask you for help."_

 _The silence quickly grew to be unbearable. Rose checked the connection again. Would he really stay quiet this whole time? Wouldn't he say anything?_

" _Please," Rose pleaded, one last time. "Doctor, you've got to help."_

 _Now the Doctor was the one clearing his throat, but the noise was far from the impatient sound Mickey made earlier. Rather, it sounded like he was moving something painful out of the way._

" _Right. Yes. Of course," he said, and Rose imagined he was probably running his hand through his hair at that moment, mussing it even more wildly than usual. "But, erm. I'd need more information. A lot more information. Definitely more than you could transmit over the course of such a brief phone call. And even then, I'm not certain how much I can do, not being there myself."_

 _Rose glanced at the stopwatch in Mickey's hand. Thirty-four seconds._

" _Is there any way you could come here?" she asked hurriedly. "Since all these holes have opened up, could you pilot the TARDIS through?"_

" _No."_

" _Oh," said Rose, biting her lip in worry._

" _Well now, hang on a minute, there's no reason to get all gloomy," the Doctor protested, and here he sounded so much more like himself that Rose couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. "Just because one solution won't work, doesn't mean nothing will. My readings indicate too many quantum instabilities for the TARDIS to digest at the moment, but I've got other things in the ol' think-tank that could work. Big things. Important things. Big, important things."_

" _Impressive things?" Rose asked with the ghost of a smile._

" _Terribly impressive things, Rose Tyler. Terribly impressive. It's only a matter of determining all the potential confounding variables and considering all of the resources at our disposal. For example, if I could procure a Void-worthy vessel, that would be neat. Or perhaps I can build one, though I'm not certain where to obtain the necessary molecular resistance buffers this time of year…"_

 _Mickey smacked Rose's arm for attention, mouthing the words that were passing through Rose's brain at that very moment._

Dimension cannon.

" _We've got something that could work," Rose said, nodding._

"' _Could work'?" the Doctor repeated. "_ Could work _. That sounds…encouraging," he said, in a tone that suggested it didn't sound very encouraging at all._

" _I mean, it should work. It_ does _work. The trials were all a huge success. The program was just put on hold for stupid administrative reasons."_

" _Being?"_

 _Eleven seconds. Rose hesitated, wasting time she knew she didn't have._

" _It's modeled after recovered Cyberman tech," she confessed._

 _Probably he was scratching the back of his neck now. "Eh, not ideal, but if it'll bring me over…"_

" _It will, we've just got to send me first."_

" _What?" the Doctor snapped, suddenly stern. "No. No. Absolutely not."_

" _Well, yeah, that's how it works—I go over there, establish a connection point, grab you, bring you back."_

" _No. There's no way that technology is refined or stable enough to safely transport a human."_

" _Excuse me, but we did all right," Rose shot back, indignant. "I'm sorry it's not Time Lord enough for you, but it still does the job—"_

" _Rose,_ no _."_

" _Doctor, we haven't got time—"_

 _The stopwatch chirped out a warning tone and Julie slammed the kill switch, ending the call with a sickening whine. Although the lights flickered queasily overhead, they didn't black out this time; a few shuddering gasps later, everything returned to full power. At least they wouldn't be getting any nasty calls from their supervisors tomorrow._

 _Although if tomorrow never happened, then that would hardly matter, would it?_

" _Mickey," Rose said, pulling off her headset. "How do you feel about pulling some strings and making some threats?"_

 _Mickey grinned. "I feel pretty good about it."_

* * *

After a brief (and very cold) scrub-off in the medbay shower, and struggling (but ultimately succeeding, she'd like to point out) with leggings and stockings and a jumper, Rose accepts Donna's help with the rest of her clothes only a little reluctantly—she feels like a child, letting Donna fuss over her, buttoning her cardigan over the jumper, pulling a slouchy knit cap down over her ears, winding Rose's old scarf round her neck. Rose asks where she managed to scrounge the scarf up from and Donna just tuts and waves her off. Rose gets the distinct impression that Donna can be downright Jackielike, when she wants to be.

"At least you're not plugged into the IV station anymore," Donna remarks as she helps Rose step into a pair of comfy, chunky boots, lacing them up after. "Can you imagine carting that thing all over the place?"

"How long was I out, anyway?" Rose asks, doing her resolute best not to sway on her feet.

"Well, you know how it is—kind of difficult to tell that sort of thing on the TARDIS. But by my best estimate—maybe thirty hours?"

"Thirty hours?" Rose repeats weakly. "I don't know if they've got even half an hour, back home."

Donna shoots her a reassuring smile. "Except that's another thing the Doctor's good at, taking that sort of business into account. We've been floating in the Vortex this whole time—I imagine he's planning to pop back to the very moment after you arrived, just as soon as you're up and running again. Yeah?"

Of course she's right. Rose suddenly feels quite stupid and uncertain, and uncomfortable in a way that's surely got nothing to do with the Doctor running away, the fact that he isn't here to tell her all of this himself. "Yeah," she echoes, quietly.

Donna's face softens. "We both know it'll be all right, don't we? You'll stop this thing, whatever it is. You and the Doctor both. It's what you do."

Rose relaxes a little. "And you too, Donna."

"Damn right, me too." Pulling the boot-laces snugly, Donna stands up, brushing dust off her trousers. "Now, time to get out there and kick Spaceman's scrawny little arse into gear. You ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Rose replies.

(Which is to say, not at all.)

* * *

 _Now it was Rose's old mobile that rang, just seconds before Rose planned to hit the "call" button._

" _Listen to me, Rose," said the Doctor, his voice sharp with urgency. "Whatever you're getting ready to attempt, do not do it. Do you hear me? Do not do it."_

" _What, can you see us right now?" asked Mickey, frowning into his mic as he glanced around the tent, through the plastic window to the outside world, as if the Doctor may walk out of the ocean or materialize at any second from behind a rock or damp sand dune._

" _In a manner of speaking, yes. And what you're doing is terribly dangerous, and worse, terribly stupid."_

" _It's exactly the same thing you were talking about," said Rose. She nodded in thanks to the technician securing the last pieces of her spacesuit, tightening the chestplate with a click. (The US may have been completely bonkers, but God bless NASA, she thought.) "We've got a Void-worthy vessel. We're going to use the Void-worthy vessel."_

" _We call it 'the dimension cannon'," Mickey piped up._

" _Oh, lovely, a dimension cannon, well. Fancy-sounding, sophisticated name like that doesn't sound at all like something contrived out of a cheap sci-fi. But tell me, just out of curiosity: precisely how many successful runs did you complete with this contraption before you were shut down? Not trials, mind—runs. How many?"_

" _Enough," Mickey replied stubbornly._

" _Now there's an answer that inspires confidence," said the Doctor, his voice dry. "Mickey—that is Mickey, isn't it? I can only assume you would have let Rose talk you into this reckless venture—Mickey, under no circumstances are you to let Rose do anything stupid, no matter what she says to you. No matter what. That technology is dangerous. It could kill her, maim her, tear her to pieces, lose her in the Void, any number of absolutely horrendous and horrifying things. Do you understand me? This could get Rose killed."_

 _Mickey shot Rose a worried glance. Wordlessly, she looked back at him, jaw set, stance firm. Pleading. She would do this with or without his help (but of course he knew that, he had to know that, and surely the Doctor did too); still, she would much prefer to go forth into the great dark unknown with the comfort of Mickey having her back._

 _Besides—the last star disappeared from the sky not half an hour earlier._

 _They were running out of options._

" _Sorry, boss," Mickey says into the mic. "I trust her more than I trust you."_

 _The Doctor groaned in frustration. "Mickey—"_

" _Doctor," Rose interrupted firmly. "I appreciate your concern, I really do, but we're hardly jumping into this blindly. We've assembled a team of the world's top engineers, astronomers, physicists, and experts in alien tech—including a number of actual aliens—to help design a number of machines designed to project things across the Void, and the machines work. They work, Doctor. The tech may not be as sophisticated as anything you're accustomed to, but it's functional; it's how we managed to call you before, why you're able to talk to us right now."_

" _A phone call is hardly the same thing as the safe transmission of human life, Rose—"_

" _The cannon, in particular, is designed specifically for projecting organic material across the Void," Rose continued, louder now. "We've collaborated with NASA on a special extravehicular mobility suit, specially designed to keep organic material safe and alive in the Void. We've built a launch platform at Bad Wolf Bay, where experts have determined the walls to be the weakest between us and the Void. And our techs have pinpointed, down to the precise second, the best time to launch across the Void. There's a lot we don't know right now, about the stars going out, and how, and why, but we know what we need to, to get me safely to you. Yeah?"_

 _Drawing in a deep breath, Rose steadied herself. "Look, I know this mission isn't without its risks. But we've calculated them, and they're worth it. We can't bring you over without establishing a connection point first; we can't do that without me. We may not be Time Lords, but we've still done our research, and we've at least got enough brains and know-how to get us where we need to go."_

" _And most importantly, we've got Rose," Mickey added. "You may not believe in the tech, but you believe in her. Right?"_

 _Rose imagined the Doctor gripping the edge of the TARDIS console, eyes wild and unseeing, mouth open as he searched for the right words to stop her. She flashed Mickey a tender smile._

" _That's not—that's beside the point," the Doctor stuttered. "That's not the issue here. If that cannon isn't perfectly calibrated, if that suit isn't one-thousand-percent airtight, if you've miscalculated in any way—"_

" _I've got him," Julie announces from her position at the control desk. "Triangulated the TARDIS call signal; quantum coordinate set with an error-margin of less than .004%. Ready to initiate launch whenever you are, Agent Tyler."_

" _Listen, Rose—at least let me help, for goodness' sake, at least give me time to calibrate some kind of collimated beam to help you land safely—"_

" _Agent Tyler?"_

 _Rose looked up to find Julie watching her expectantly; she glanced round to see half the UNIT science team crowded into the tent as well, watching, waiting. One of them, a mother of five whose children and partner all sat terrified at home, had chewed her nails down to the quick; another team member twisted his mouth in worry, and Rose knew he was thinking of his cousin, embroiled neck-deep in one of those godforsaken Apocalypse cults._

 _She couldn't quite bring herself to meet Julie's eyes. Everyone there knew what happened to her husband, months before—what had happened to so many people who despaired over the impending death of everything in the world. Everyone knew; no one dared mention it._

 _(He didn't even leave a note.)_

 _All of them stood with shoulders and fists wired to stiff tension, all of them silent, some of them standing with eyes closed, as if in prayer, others trembling with apprehension and worry. And perhaps just the smallest, tiniest hint of hope._

 _Heart thudding dully behind her ribs, Rose stepped closer to Mickey, pulling him into a tight hug._

" _I have complete faith that we're going to succeed," she said, so that only he and the Doctor could hear. "But just in case…you know how much I love you, right?"_

 _Mickey nodded against her head. "Love you too, babe," he murmured, hugging her tighter._

 _The Doctor, of course, said nothing._

 _No stopwatch told Rose when to end the call, this time. (They didn't even bother bringing the stopwatch, this time.)_

" _See you on the other side, Doctor," she said, hanging up before he had a chance to reply._

 _Swallowing hard, Rose handed Mickey the headset. She waited patiently while Julie and the other techs scurried round to complete all their last-minute tasks, attaching her helmet, booting up the cannon, checking and double-checking and triple-checking every last thing. Rose's breath fogged up the inside of her helmet as she stepped out of the tent into the grey Norwegian morning, the shrieks of seagulls and crash of the waves muffled by the plastic and padding round her ears._

 _The beach looked every bit as depressing as the last time she saw it. Hopefully that wasn't any sort of sign._

" _Okay," she breathed, willing her heart to slow, her nerves to calm. "I'm ready."_

* * *

The sight is still so familiar, it's staggering; Rose has to brace herself against the railing when she sees him at the console, his lean frame angled elegantly over a keyboard as he watches figures flash across one of those monitors he's got rigged askance all over the desk. If it wasn't for the shorter haircut and the ridiculously long scarf he's got wrapped around his neck to keep out the cold, Rose could almost believe she'd accidentally stepped back in time and arrived in the console room four years ago—at any moment, she half-expects the Doctor to flash her one of his brilliant grins before whisking her away on a brand-new adventure.

He does no such thing. He's too busy glowering at the monitor, like it wronged him. But slowly his focus shifts from the monitor, and now he looks at Rose.

A small eternity passes in the moment they lock eyes.

Rose represses a shudder. The piercing intensity of the Doctor's gaze knocks the breath out of her—far worse than anything she ever experienced in the Void. She suddenly has a deep appreciation for the tendency of his enemies to back down under that stare. She can't say she blames them. Instead she forces herself to hold his gaze, forbids her eyes from giving in to the nigh-overwhelming desire to look him over, all over, before sprinting up the steps to wrap her arms snug around him, reassuring herself that he's here, with her, and he's the same, and he's _him_.

Telltale pressure burns behind her sinuses but she sets her jaw and wills the would-be tears away. She can think about all of that later—first, she's got a mission to complete. A universe to save. She can't let whatever feelings she may-or-may-not-have about the Doctor get in her way of anything so important as that.

"I'm not sorry," she blurts out, silently cursing herself after.

Arching an eyebrow, the Doctor returns to his keyboard and monitor, back stiff. "Well, hello to you, too."

"You still cross with me?"

His noncommittal grunt reminds her so fiercely of her first Doctor, she aches. God, but she's missed him, too. Rose forces herself not to betray her nervousness, not to fidget with the hem of her cardigan.

"You would have done exactly the same thing," she says, her voice gentle, now. "And you know it."

The Doctor _hmphs_ under his breath, and continues typing commands into the keyboard as if Rose isn't there.

She sighs, shivering with the cold. Fine. It's as good an opportunity as any to shuffle round the console room, absorbing all the sights, feeling the buzz of the TARDIS beneath her soles, listening to her hum reverberating in the walls. It's pitched a little higher than usual, like the TARDIS is happy to see her again; the feeling is mutual. Happiness floods Rose, filling her chest like the golden glow from the central column, and she places a hand on a coral strut, almost reverently this time, resting her forehead against it, after.

She draws in a deep breath, like she could fill her lungs with the TARDIS' joy. She was starting to fear she'd never feel that again; Rose has never been more happy to be wrong.

Standing back, Rose sends her fingers traveling over the sandpaper-rough coral down to the handrail, and she follows the handrail up to the landing, to the creaky old leather jumpseat, running a hand along its stitches and tears. Sitting sounds marvelous, all of a sudden (thirty hours' worth of sleep, how is she still so tired?), so Rose turns round, braces her hands against the seat and tries to hoist herself up. Of course, her shaking arms and quivering legs have other ideas, and the next thing she knows, she's slipped half an inch and suddenly the Doctor is at her side, hands steadying her by the waist.

(She has a flash-memory of a dip on New Earth and the new Doctor pulling her upright, pulling her close; her face mere inches from his, she feels every bit as lightheaded and disoriented now as she did back then.)

"Hullo," she says quietly, smiling.

The Doctor does not smile. "Why didn't you just listen to me?"

"Ooh, look, we match," says Rose, reaching down to fiddle with the Doctor's scarf. She pulls the ends up to hers, and frowns. "Yours is much longer, though. That's rubbish. I want a lovely long scarf."

"Are you even listening to me right now?"

"Hmm-mm." Rose plays with the tails of his scarf, rolling the knit hem between her fingers. "So let's skip whatever squabbling you have in mind and go straight to the happy reunion, yeah? _Hey Doctor, long time no see, fancy helping me save the universe_?"

His mouth pinches into a thin line. "You could have died, Rose."

"Didn't, though. Doesn't that count for something?"

The Doctor laughs mirthlessly, stowing his hands in his pockets. "Yes, I suppose it does, in much the same way that one should be grateful for surviving a round of Russian Roulette."

"False equivalency," Rose replies.

Opening his mouth to argue, the Doctor suddenly stops, blinks in surprise.

"What? I _do_ read. And anyway, it wasn't like that at all. Donna told me about the sabotage attempt."

"Yes, turns out your ultra-fancy, specially-designed, supposedly airtight NASA suit wasn't so airtight after all. Though that was, as you mentioned, the byproduct of sabotage rather than an inherent design flaw," the Doctor admits, if a bit grudgingly.

"Yeah, and it sounds like things would have gone off without a hitch, otherwise," Rose says. "So why don't you tell me the real reason you're cross?"

Glancing away, the Doctor sighs. "It was just an unnecessary risk is all."

"I dunno, the survival of my universe seems pretty necessary to me."

"But it isn't the only reason you leapt at the chance to come back here, is it?"

He won't meet her gaze when he says it. Rose stubbornly looks him in the face anyway.

"No," she admits. "It isn't."

Eyes sliding shut, the Doctor shakes his head.

"I missed you," Rose says, despite the anxiety fluttering wildly in her stomach, urging her to bottle these feelings back up before they get themselves bruised. "So I did what I had to, to get back. Is that really so stupid?"

"It's not," he replies, softly. "But it seems grotesquely unfair, or cruel, even, to expose me to the possibility of experiencing such a loss all over again."

Guilt prickles at the back of Rose's mind, and something else, too, some indescribable feeling so big and overwhelming she has to purse her lips tight to hold it back. Tears begin welling up behind her eyes again and her toes curl in her boots with the effort of damming them.

"Well, at least I tried," she bites out. "I'm sorry if that's a problem for you."

Tensing, the Doctor draws back, ready to walk away; panic thudding dully in her ears, Rose stops him with her hands on his chest.

"Please don't go," she murmurs. Her hands slip beneath the tails of his scarf to wrap around his jacket lapels, holding on tight. Bowing her head, she steps close, so close she can feel the warmth of her breath trapped between them. She tightens her hold. "Please," she says again, swallowing.

He doesn't reply. But at least he doesn't try to turn away again. That seems like a good sign at least. He still won't look at her, though.

"God, this isn't at all how I thought this would go," Rose confesses to the Doctor, or rather to his chest, laughing shakily. "I thought—I dunno." She runs her fingers along the coils of his scarf, plucking at a loose thread. "Thought I'd at least get a hug, or something. You know?"

The Doctor hesitates. Slowly, as if every atom in his body is resisting, screaming at him not to give in, he wraps his arms around Rose, the movement stiff and odd and almost painfully formal.

"Mm, yeah, that's the stuff," Rose says dryly, and she's rewarded by the Doctor rolling his eyes before he tightens his arms around her, pulling her in for a proper hug.

It's—

She stifles a gasp.

It's all really happening, isn't it?

His arms wrap around her _exactly_ the way they used to, fists curling against her ribcage and drawing her in snug and close and just short of uncomfortably tight, and her arms snake beneath his and cling to him just as hard; Rose buries her face in his scarf, breathing him in, and the nostalgia and hurt and longing and grief just wash over her in waves, buffeting her like a buoy out at sea. The Doctor feels just how she remembers, wiry and lean but solid, his double-heartsbeat against her chest beating out a rhythm both alien and immensely comfortable, and he still smells the same, that quiet almost-not-smell of home, and the wool of his suit clings to the whorls of her fingertips precisely the way she recalls; for some reason, that's the thing that breaks the dam of her tears, bringing them pearling uncontrollably in the corners of her eyes.

(The truth strikes her like an electric shock. She made it. _She finally made it._ She's here, the Doctor's here, and he's cross with her but they're together, he's hugging her and he's not going away and she's not going away and he's solid and his suit is scratchy and he cares about her and he's holding her and he's _real._ )

"I really, really missed you," Rose confesses, and she's trying not to let the tears fall, she's really trying, but she's just so tired and the effort of holding back means she's shaking now, violently, harder and harder by the second. She buries her face against his scarf, like maybe she can hide it from him, like if she burrows deep enough, he won't notice. But something in him seems to loosen; Rose can feel him unwinding a little, even as he tightens his grip on her. Now the hug truly is uncomfortable, but she's not about to tell him that.

She's just tired, she tells herself. That's the only reason the tears won't stop and the hug is hard enough to hurt. It's got nothing to do with anything else, not the emotion forming a lump in her chest, not the Doctor pressing his face into her hair. Nothing else at all.

"I, erm. Don't suppose you missed me?" Rose sniffs, despite herself.

The Doctor chuckles sadly. "Don't suppose I did."

"Not at all?"

"Not even a little bit."

With a small, watery grin, Rose draws back to look at him. "Liar," she says softly.

The Doctor nods, his smile just as pale as hers. "It's good to see you again, Rose. It's really good."

"Yeah. You too."

At that, the Doctor lets out a slow exhale, leaning forward to press his forehead against Rose's, their bodies so close that Rose can feel the space between them buzzing. It would be quite easy, no effort at all really, to push up on her toes and press a kiss to his lips, if she wanted. He reaches up to touch her face, touch her hair, cup her cheek, like he's reassuring himself she's real; the gestures are so uncharacteristically sweet and sincere that it makes Rose ache. But things will go back to normal again soon enough, she knows—normal for them, anyway—back to the silly and the scary and the ridiculous and the words-nearly-said and feelings-barely-hidden. So for now, Rose's eyes flutter shut, and she loses herself in the moment, the almost-sacred quiet closeness of it.

It's good to be home.

After a moment, Rose pulls back, thumbing away the last of her tears. "So," she says, grabbing the Doctor's scarf to dab her cheeks dry afterward, "ready to go save the world?"

"Don't you think you should finish resting up first?"

Rose wrinkles her nose. "No, ta. Thirty hours' sleep is plenty for me."

"Eh, technically it was twenty-nine hours and eighteen minutes."

"All right, twenty-nine hours and eighteen minutes, then," Rose laughs, pulling out of the Doctor's arms. "Still, I think I've rested plenty—"

And of course, as if they were only waiting for the opportunity, that's the moment her knees choose to turn to jelly. Rose doesn't even have time to shout out in alarm before the Doctor grabs her by the waist again, pulling her upright.

"I'm fine," Rose insists, even as her body trembles and shivers. (Stupid, treacherous body.)

"Uh-huh," says the Doctor, eyebrow cocked in amusement. He loops one of her arms around his shoulders. "Come on, you're not going to do anyone any good falling all over the place," he says, urging her along. "Let's get you back to the medbay."

"I can still save the world while falling over," Rose protests as she shuffles alongside him.

"Oh, undoubtedly, but it's hardly dignified. Time to rest. Doctor's orders."

"This is why no one likes doctors," Rose grumbles, and that's when, with a sigh heavy in resignation, the Doctor stops walking, leaving Rose lurching in her tracks. He stoops low to sweep her legs out from under her, scooping her up bridal-style after; Rose gives a little shriek and clings to his neck as he walks off with her, a smug grin playing across his face.

"Cheater," says Rose, and his grin widens.

* * *

She's surprised when they stop several doors short of the meday, at the library; the Doctor claims it's only because she's so heavy, and chuckles at the halfhearted smack she delivers to his shoulder. In any case, he insists, he's probably long overdue for a bit of a rest himself, as Donna has been all-too-happy to remind him, and why not kill two birds with one stone? ("Not that I've got anything in particular against birds, not like they can help it that they're germ-ridden little disease bombs," the Doctor says.)

They reach the library settee, one of Rose's favorite places to lounge once upon a time; her heart swells with fondness for the Doctor and his eidetic memory and his wonderful ship, and once more she's filled with that sense of time-traveler's déjà vu, that lovely feeling like she's stepped back into the past and transcended the years and distance between them. When the Doctor moves to deposit Rose, her grip on him tightens just a little—partly it's a hug, partly a silent request not to let go. Admittedly she feels a little silly and needy doing it, clinging to him like a child or a desperate lover, but afterward, the Doctor seems to change his mind, turning round to plunk himself down on the settee instead, Rose still in his arms.

(Hmm. Maybe she's not the only one who's just a little clingy, then.)

Settling Rose's legs over his lap, the Doctor leans over to snatch a blanket off a nearby chair—it's blush-pink and ridiculously soft, certainly not something he would have chosen; Rose wonders if Donna brought it onboard—and he wraps it around Rose, tucking it in at the corners. He procures the sonic from his pocket and switches on the telly before nestling back, resting comfortably in his old spot on the settee with one arm round Rose's waist, the other resting casually atop her legs. Casually, like it hasn't been four years since the last time they watched telly together, like this is still part of the everyday, for them.

Later, Rose thinks she'll have to tease him for being so _domestic_. Now, she snuggles close, arching upward just long enough to plant a kiss on his cheek. She does it quickly, before she can think better of it. After, she pulls back, nervous, biting her lip in uncertainty.

Of course the Doctor doesn't say anything (he never does when he should, does he?) but his Adam's apple bobs nervously and he squeezes her waist. And when she buries her face against his neck, her cheeks burning, he hums deep in his chest, a pleased little sound.

It's nice, all cozied up together like this. It's the first time Rose has felt warm in months.

"So tomorrow, we save the world?" she asks.

The Doctor nods, eyes fixed on the telly screen and whatever nonsense is playing across it. "Tomorrow," he says softly.


End file.
